Silver Stakes
by Master Isabella
Summary: Set before the events of Vampire Academy. Before the retrieval of Vasilisa Dragomir and her dhampir friend Rosemarie Hathaway, Dimitri Belikov became a guardian and killed his first Strigoi. Dimitri Belikov One-Shot!


_**Silver Stakes**_

_**A Dimitri Belikov One-Shot**_

_**Master Isabella**_

I held the silver stake in my right hand. It felt foreign in my hands as I rolled it back and forth, but never dropping it. The point of the stake made me slightly nervous. I usually never handled a stake, only when Galina allowed me to practice. Now that Galina was gone, I had no other choice but to let the other guardians shove a sharp silver stake into my hands.

I did not like the way it felt. It was light as a feather and any light that caught on the silver, it gleamed brightly, leaving me disoriented every time I glanced down at it. It was also cold to the touch. Or at least, it had been. Now it was warm from my hands clutching it and holding it tightly against my stomach. As much as I hated holding the weapon, it made me feel safe, if not a little uncomfortable.

This wasn't me. I never held a stake like it was my lifeline. If anything, I'd rather use something else - fire, or some other weapon - than the sharp wood with the sharp silver end. Everything the silver touched - my skin, my callused hands, the ground - it seemed to burn a black hole through. It was the only way to explain how deadly and wrong the stake felt in my hands. I did not feel like I was in my skin; I felt different. Changed.

"You ready, Belikov?" One of the guardians, Steve, I think his name was, asked me while zipping up a thick fleece jacket. I gulped back the uncomfortable feeling of the silver in my hand, and, by force, I nodded.

Today we were going in search of some Strigoi. They had killed a family of Moroi, and their two guardians. Usually we never searched for the Strigoi, we did not ask for trouble, but this was horrible. The images were still in my head, bright as day, clear as water. Disfigured bodies everywhere, bite marks on their throats, drained of blood. . . Blood. Blood splattered everywhere. On the floor, on the bodies, on the walls, sprawled out in the form of words.

_MOROI. MUST. DIE. _

I remembered the fresh blood leaking from their necks and cheeks and arms and hands. Children's bodies, dead. They were all dead.

And we were too late.

Steve and another guardian, Phineas, walked over to me, hands on hips, staring down at me like a scolded child. I hated how they treated me. Like I _was _a little child. I was no longer a pitiful little Novice, I was a guardian.

"What?" I asked, looking up at them, my face a blank wall. Now that I was a guardian, I did not show my emotions. Sadness. Anger. Desperation. Fear. It was all tucked into the back of my mind. My feelings could not be shown as a guardian. No one needed to know what I felt.

"Get up, Belikov," Steve said, kicking the sole of my shoe with his. He had a large, snaky grin hanging off his mouth.

"Time for action," said another guardian. They all looked so fierce, so tough, that it only added to the intensity of the moment. I inhaled a deep breath - thankfully, it sounded strong and I sounded sure of myself - and stood up, facing Steve and the other guardian.

"Ready?" the other guy, I did not know his name, asked. He looked more serious and angry than anyone else I had ever seen. I did not know what to think of him.

I nodded, handing the stake into my other hand, gripping the wood of the stake so hard, the blood drained from my hand and my knuckles stretched and white. I had to be sure of myself. Am I really ready to face a Strigoi army? "Yeah. Let's go."

The first mistake the Strigoi's made was staying in a windowless motel room. I thought it stupid; they thought it clever. I followed a guardian named Alexander to the back side of the motel. If the Strigoi's discovered our plans, they would bolt, out the back door, right into my and Alexander's hands.

"It's weird, right?" I asked, shuffling my feet, the stake being thrown from one hand to the other. I was nervous. This was my first time on the job. First time on an ambush against Strigoi's.

"Huh?" Alexander said, not paying any attention to me whatsoever. His eyelids squinted, his hand blocking the sun's glare as he stared up at the second story balcony. The balcony ran all around the second story of the motel. I guessed he was trying to figure out what the Strigoi's escape plan was if anyone ambushed them while in their motel room, caught off-guard.

"Why would Strigoi travel in groups?" I asked more to myself than to Alexander. I bit my lip, still nervous, the stake growing cold in my loose grip. It was the middle of December, and God, was it cold.

"Your guess is as good as mine, Belikov," Alexander said, his hands resting on his hips. I could see the glare from the sun bouncing off of the silver stake's reflection. His stake was holstered, unlike mine. I had to hold mine. I wondered why I didn't have a holster, or even a belt for that matter. Maybe I had to earn the rights to a holster.

"Do we have to kill them?" I asked, glancing up at the second-story balcony, my eyes lingering on the doors with red paint peeling off. I sighed, watching for any sudden movement. Any change in the atmosphere. _Any second now_.

"Yes," Alexander said. "All of them." His eyes squinted so much that they disappeared into his cheeks. He seemed in deep concentration, as if thinking about what should be done if the Strigoi come out the back way, so I sigh and lean back on my heels, watching the clouds lazily drift by. It was quiet, almost completely silent if not for the tweeting of birds and the crickets chirping in the lined trees behind me. I counted the doors on the back balcony. Twenty-three doors, twenty-one red, two green.

We waited, which I was good at. Actually, I was exceptional at it. I stood still and did not make a sound as Alexander gazed at the back of the motel cautiously. I tried to talk to him several times, but all he did was tell me to shut up, so I gave up and watched him watch the building. I did not bother to sit. If the Strigoi came out, my sitting position would only put me at jeopardy. The more I thought about it - if I did one thing wrong, I would die - I got more nervous. The stake became wet in my palm from sweat and started to slip from my strong grip.

_Get it together,_ I reminded myself. This was a life-or-death situation. Or it would be soon, anyway. Who knew when - _if _- the Strigoi stormed out the back in a desperate plan to escape. I had to be prepared for anything, whether I killed Strigoi's or not.

I also thought about the Moroi family the Strigoi killed. Dead bodies. Disfigured. It made me hate the Strigoi more, my tight grower tighter on the stake. It slipped from my hand and it clattered on the hot pavement. I sighed, bent down, and picked it up. My palms were still sweaty.

"Do you see anything?" I asked Alexander when he seemed to be taking a break from staring at a building. A still, silent building at that. It did not feel long before he looked in my direction - not at me, but where I was, if that makes any sense.

"No," he said, wiping gleaming sweat from above his brow. "What about you?"

I glanced at the building, still and unmovable as can be, before turning back to Alexander and shaking my head. "I don't see anything."

As soon as I said the words, I regretted them. One, the birds stopped singing right after that, and the crickets stopped chirping. Alexander narrowed his eyes at me, then the building. A noise was heard from inside, and all of a sudden one of the motel doors opened. I was frozen in place when I saw a pale, ugly face look at me from inside the door. It smirked evilly and waited. Just waited.

I heard Alexander breathing heavily. "Don't freak out, okay? . . . Belikov?"

I gulped and slowly turned my head toward Alexander. "What? I didn't hear you."

"I said, don't freak out." Alexander slowly reached for his stake and retrieved it from his belt. "Here we go."

"Wait! What?" I did not know what was happening.

Alexander started running toward the back door of the motel room and I followed, my boots making a slapping noise against the hot pavement. The mid-afternoon sun bore against me, soaking up all my energy and draining it from my body. Just as we reached door and Alexander disappeared inside, I heard him whisper, "Okay" as if I knew what he meant.

Would I be okay?

The face was still there, in my mind, forever there, pale and evil and destructive, a bloody gash on the side of its face, staring at me with a smirk on its lips. Tat was my first encounter with a Strigoi. My stake almost slipped from my hand, but I grabbed it at the last second, before it hit the floor. I stumbled in through the open doorway, wondering what the hell I was doing.

The room was dark, and crowded. Muffled but loud noises filled the spaces and my ears were filled with the sounds of fighting, struggling, and yelling. I did not know what to do, so I slipped through the room, toward the little sliver of light coming through a slit in the window. Before I even came close to it, a body slammed into me and threw me into another dark room. I yelped as my shoulder came into contact with something hard and cold. I was too disoriented to realize it was the lid of a toilet. A dirty motel toilet.

A loud laugh filled the room and the lights flickered on to reveal a small, dirty bathroom. The sunflower wallpaper was peeling in the corners, and there were cracks in the tiles, but what got my attention was the pale body towering over me, its face pale, inhumane.

"Ooh, a young one." The Strigoi man grabbed the front of my grey sweater with both hands and pulled me up, only to slam me into the wall. My vision went in and out of focus, and I felt unusually dizzy. I almost felt like puking. There was a sharp pinch in my thigh, like a bee sting, and then I felt something even sharper slash my biceps in my left arm. I had a muffled scream.

"How nice of them to bring us more food," the Strigoi man said, his face too close to mine. "Although, I expected them to put up more of a fight. What about you?" He - _it _- licked its lips wickedly. A pale face, strong arms; this was a Strigoi.

And he was about to kill me.

In one swift and clumsy movement, the Strigoi threw me into the bath tub. I heard a muffled gasp and I stood up. Alexander was on top of the Strigoi, and they were both struggling to win against the other. I scrambled out of the dirty, 80s' pink tub and started to crawl out of the bathroom. I turned back, much to my regret, to see the Strigoi throwing Alexander against the sink. Alexander turned to me, blood spilling out from under his vest, and mouthed the word, _Go_.

I did.

There were dhampirs still fighting when I crawled out of the bathroom and into the light of the door. I was breathing heavily, and I looked down to see blood pooling from a spot on my pants, near my thigh. The end of a butter knife was sticking out of my thigh. I resisted the urge to scream as I grasped the knife and tugged at it until it pulled free. I threw it as far as I could, into the darkness of the room.

There was a thump and a yell before I heard a body hit the ground beside me. The skin was cold to the touch, and I immediately knew it was a Strigoi. I did not know how many Strigoi's there were, but I sure hoped we were winning the battle.

I sat there for what felt like a long time when I was pulled by two strong arms. I started to kick my feet and I grabbed the arms of my opponent, throwing him against the wall. I heard the crunch of the wall break and a grunt as the Strigoi crawled out of the hole in the wall. I steadied myself, forgetting the pain in my thigh and my biceps and the burn in my flesh and remembered what Galina taught me during my time training. Deep breathe. Deep breathe. I grabbed the Strigoi and threw him against the wall a second time, its nails digging into the skin on my arm. The next time I fumbled with grabbing him, and he pushed me out the door.

I stared at the ceiling of the balcony above, it provided little shade, but enough for the Strigoi to jump on top of me. I was shocked to see it was a woman, an ugly-looking woman, with an evil glint in her eyes. Her teeth snatched at my neck and I pushed hard enough for her to stumble backward and into the sunlight. She started to scream, loud and nerve-rattling. In my peripheral vision, I could see the glint of silver.

My stake.

The Strigoi woman lunged at me, I lunged at the stake, and in a clash of limbs and cold flesh, we crashed into the pavement. My hand immediately shot out from under the weight of myself and the Strigoi woman atop it, and reached for the stake. I felt a sharp pain in my neck and the pain only made me push harder for the stake. A wonderful feeling started to overtake my sense and calm my nerves. I had seconds before the Strigoi's venom completely overtook me in pleasurably pain. My fingers grazed against the silver point, and I clasped hold of the stake, driving it into the Strigoi's leg.

She screamed in my ear and I threw her off my back. Blood pooled from my neck, onto my shoulder, and down my arm and chest. It hurt like hell, but I ignored it. The Strigoi woman stood, grabbing the stake a pulling it out of her leg in a matter of seconds. She threw it and it clattered five feet away, in direct sunlight. I turned back to face the Strigoi woman and she lunged at me. I grabbed her arms and we flew until I was pinning her to the wall. She was struggling, grunting and moaning and spitting curses in every direction. I could tell she was in pain from the wound in her leg, and I dug into her skin as I pinned her harder against the wall.

"Please," she whispered, tears pooling at the corners of her eyes. "Please. Don't kill me."

My grip loosened for a second, but I knew what she was doing. I pulled her back against me before throwing her against the wall again. She yelled out in pain. I was angry, upset, and scared all at the same time. I was also drained of energy, any and all energy I had went into throwing her against the wall.

"Please!" She spoke softly, gently, almost as if she were human. She wasn't.

"You deserve no mercy," I whispered to her, my hair hanging in front of my eyes. A few guardians had filed outside and were staring, trying to pull me off as I threw her against the wall, again and again and again. My hand flew out, coming into contact with someone's chest. I wanted this as much as I needed this. This Strigoi probably murdered that family, those children. My hand that had hit one of the dhampir's chest was still out, and I felt something slip into my palm. I turned for a second to see the silver stake in my hand. My eyes desperately searched the crowd, but I did not recognize any of the faces. It was all a blur.

I took the stake, firm and sure in my hand, and turned back to the Strigoi. Fear flashed in her eyes. I didn't know Strigoi could feel fear, but I guess, in their last moments, they feel the hard impact of their human life. Fear and love and anger and every other emotion that Strigoi do not feel. Strigoi only feel one thing: Death.

I watched the life that was left in her as I drove the stake into her heart, her sinful heart. She let out a struggled croak before going slack in my arms. She was dead.

Everything went black and I fell forward.

* * *

><p>"Belikov?" A voice spoke in the darkness. "Hey, Belikov? Dimitri? C'mon, boy, wake up."<p>

My eyes fluttered open and I looked into the grim face of Phineas. I sat up straighter and looked around frantically. I was in the back seat of a car, the state scenery of Montana flying past me. I breathed heavily, my hands gripping the hem of my shirt. I felt so drained, so tired. God, I was tired.

"What the hell happened?" I asked, looking around at the back of heads in front of me. Tired. Fatigued.

"You passed out after driving a stake through that undead girl," Phineas explained in such a short amount of words. He shook his head and one side of his mouth tipped upward in a sideways grin. "Good God, boy, that was awesome. You were like a god out there! Swinging and throwing and punching."

I stared at him skeptically.

"You were a freaking badass, Belikov," Phineas said, shrugging. "I gotta say, I'm impressed."

"Uh. . . Thanks?" I said, unsure of what to say exactly.

"Yup." Phineas grinned and leaned back in his chair.

I looked out the window and watched the snow-covered forests pass by quickly. The glass was cold against my forehead when I leaned against it. I sighed, thinking of all that had happened. I didn't remember much, except watching the life drain from that Strigoi girl's eyes. I thumped my head against the glass several times. I had a headache, and my wounds stung like hell, but I did not care. None of it mattered except I would never be weak again. Never again.

"Where are we going?" I asked, glancing over at Phineas, the exhaust clearly showing itself in my voice.

"Back to St. Vladimir's," Phineas said, "we're going to get our Molnija marks."

The words suddenly hit me like an air bag in a car wreck. _Molnija marks_. This would be my first one. My first Molnija mark, my first sign that I was a true guardian who had killed a Strigoi. One less Strigoi in the Moroi world. It felt amazing, like I had saved a Moroi family from being murdered from those Strigoi's. It felt right. I let out a deep breath and nodded my head.

I started to drift off to sleep again, but then I remembered something, and my head perked up voluntarily. I whipped my head around to face Phineas. "Where's Alexander?" I asked, frantic again. Image flashed in my mind. Alexander on top of that Strigoi. He saved my life.

Phineas seemed hesitant to tell me.

"Tell me!" I snapped. I was tired and aggravated and I had a headache. All I wanted was to sleep. For hours. For days.

"He's in the car behind us," Phineas said, nodding his head back behind him. I glanced over my shoulder and, sure enough, an identical black car, same as the one I was riding in, was right behind us.

"But," Phineas said and I took a sharp inhale of breath. _But _is never a good word. "He's in bad shape. Broken arm, some head damage - we don't know how permanent it may be - and a really bad cut in his leg. Dirty knife. It's nasty, Belikov."

"I bet it is," I breathed. "Is he going to be okay?"

Phineas fumbled with a gold coin in his hands. Maybe it was a good luck token? "Yeah. I think so," he said. "I hope so."

"Yeah, me, too," I leaned back and closed my eyes, but every time I did, I saw the Strigoi girl's face, and her undead life disappear from her eyes and cheeks. I had nightmares every time I closed my eyes.

Phineas woke me up when we got to St. Vladimir's, and we all piled out of the car. I towered above Phineas by a foot, not that it mattered, and we made our way to the other car. The parking garage smelled like oil and old leather. There were two dhampirs loading Alexander on a stretcher. Something caught in my throat as I walked closer.

"Hey," I said in a casual tone, leaning over him. "You okay?"

Alexander smiled. His teeth were bloody and the skin around his hairline was crusty with dried blood. Whether it was his or not, I did not want to know. "Hell yeah," he said. "That was awesome."

I could not help but smile. "Thanks," I said quietly, hoping no one else heard me. "You saved my life."

"Eh, don't worry about it," Alexander said, smiling a bloody smile. "Last time I heard, you're a badass god. Is it true?"

I shrugged and said, "I suppose."

"Cool," Alexander said before three of the dhampirs wheeled him away. I stood up straight and sighed, watching as they pushed through the exit door. I turned back to Phineas.

"Let's go get those marks," he said, patting me on the back as we made our way across campus, toward the dining hall where I would get my first Molnija marks.

* * *

><p>The guy who was going to tattoo the mark on my neck was a tall dhampir with a tattooed sleeve up his arm. Snakes and dragons and roses dotted his skin, and I was almost scared of him. The person who did my Promise mark was a young dhampir girl with a quirky smile and a go-lucky attitude. She was cool, but this tattooed piece of skin and meat almost scared me.<p>

"This'll sting," he warned as he applied a thin layer of some sort of gel on the back of my neck. A chill went down my spine and I shivered. He was trying his hard to ignore the bite marks in my neck.

As he applied another layer of the gel, a woman walked up in front of me with a skeptical look plastered across her face. She sat in the chair in front of me and leaned back, crossing her arms and pursing her lips. Even though there was a whole ceremony going on and dozens of dhampirs were here, it felt like I was the only one here, with the exception of the woman and the tattoo guy.

"Are you nervous?" the woman asked. She was short but I could see the muscles flexing through the fabric of her black jacket. She was dressed in head-to-toe black, and she was actually sort of intimidating.

"About what?" I asked, looking up and keeping a steady eye on her. I felt like going to sleep in this chair, I was so tired. Why did they have to do this immediately after the fight? It seemed random.

_So we don't forget the number of Strigoi's everyone killed, _Phineas had explained to me. Still, strange.

"The Molnija marks," she said as though it were the most obvious thing in the world.

"Uh. . ." I thought about it. I was not exactly nervous. That was not the right word for what I was feeling. "No. . . ," I said, "I'm excited, I guess."

The woman nodded, pursing her lips and staring down at the floor. "You're pretty young to be getting a Molnija mark," she said. "How long you been a guardian?"

"Three weeks," I answered. I graduated from novice to guardian three weeks ago. It feels like only hours ago.

"I have a daughter here," she explained. "She'll be a novice in a couple of years."

"Yeah?" I raised one eyebrow in response.

She nodded. "Good luck," she said before standing up and turning to leave. I felt disappointed. She was interesting to talk to, or the conversation was just getting interesting, I don't know.

"Thanks," I murmured under my breath. "Hey, wait. What's your name?"

The woman turned back and smirked. "Guardian Hathaway at your service." She turned and strode off the stage. I watched her leave before disappearing into crowd of dhampir guardians. It was a weird conversation, short and going nowhere, but I shrugged it off and felt a wet cloth slide across the back of my neck.

"Done," said the tattoo guy and handed my a wet cloth to apply to my new Molnija mark. "Congratulations, Guardian Belikov. You earned it."

I smiled, suddenly realizing what Guardian Hathaway had done.

_She was distracting me_.

"Thanks," I said, rubbing the cloth over my tattoo. The guy handed me a mirror and I looked in it at the reflection showing the back of my neck. The skin around the tattoo was red and blotchy and agitated, but I loved it. Two lighting rods crossing in an X-like fashion. I loved it even more. I stared at it for the longest time before the tattooed guy put a dry white cloth over it and taped it to my skin.

The guardians I knew, Phineas, too, were waiting for me at the bottom of the stage steps. They patted me on the back and congratulated me. And for once, I felt like a true guardian.

I was changed. I was real. I was a guardian.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Five Years Later. . . <strong>_

I lunged at the faceless dummy and threw all my energy, all my force, into staking the hell out of it. It felt good letting the steam out, and the exercise felt great. I always loved a good exercise. The dummy swung back and forth as I punched at it, my muscles flexing under the thin fabric of my black T-shirt, the one that reached down to my elbow.

It had been four years since Ivan died, since him and his guardian, my partner, had been killed by Strigoi while I was away for the holidays. Stupid me. I should have known better than to leave.

I thrust the stake sideways, at a tilted angle just below the ribs, and straight into the heart. Years ago, back when I was new to being a guardian, my staking had been clumsy and amateur. My moves were inexperienced and everything I did felt wrong. I was quick to fix that. My training had paid off, as I was now a Blood Master Level 7, the highest in guardian standards. I had also adopted an old leather brown duster, which I wore everyday.

"Hey, Belikov!" I heard a voice shout. I turned to see Maxwell, one of the older guardians, walking toward me, waving a file in the air. I squinted my eyes to try to read the print on the front of the yellow paper. "I got something for you," he said, waving it back and forth.

"What is it?" I asked, laying the stake down and walking toward him in long, graceful strides. He waved the file one more time more slapping it into my hands.

I glanced down at the file. On the front of it, in big, block-shaped black wording, the words read: _**Dragomir, Vasilisa, Discovery and Retrieval. **_I glanced up at Max with a raised eyebrow and a questionable look. **  
><strong>

He only smiled. "You're not going to believe this.".

Little did I know that, for a little over a year, I would be searching for a Moroi princess and her delinquent dhampir friend.

**THE END**


End file.
